I Had You
by Kazima Kuwabara
Summary: All of the rekai have died but one, and he is left with them only in his memories. Why i slife so cruel...how can he help two mothers and a sister deal with the losses...how can he deal with it? Why couldn't I have died...


SOng by 5 days ahead. I own nothing. ISN'T THIS SONG PIMP!?  
  
Kuwabara grunted as he rose from bed, placing a hand on the bandages that were there. He touched his naked head feeling a long line of stitches instead. The stitching started from the base of his neck, and went all the way to the center of his head. He missed his hair.  
  
But he had much more to miss....  
  
:I'll try to live through this;:  
  
He looked at the other injuries on his body, his torso, and left arm were also wrapped up, and his ankle was broken. He would never fight as good as he used to again. He had expected to stop fighting, but not soon. Tears filled his eyes, "I thought I'd be alone...but not so soon..."  
  
:Please watch over me.:  
  
Though he was in pain, he dressed quickly. His sister had left him a large hoodie, and baggy jeans. At least they didn't painfully cling to him. Leaving the room, he walked stealthily down the quiet halls, took the elevator down to the bottom floor, and exited the hospital.  
  
'Haha...stupid watchman.' Kuwabara thought smirking. He'd snuck down several times before, and had figured out just when the night guard would fall asleep. Kuwabara was supposed to stay in the hospital for another 8 weeks, but :he: had decided he'd been there long enough.  
  
The only time he's been allowed to leave the hospital was to goto their funerals...  
  
:You were always there for me when I needed a shoulder to cry on.:  
  
When Kuwabara reached the bus stop he wondered whether the busses were picking up this late...but just as he was deciding they weren't a bus appeared in front of him waiting for him to get on. Kuwabara got on grateful, and pulled out a bit of waded cash he'd been saving. "Will this get me to the Gu-yong Cemetery?"  
  
The bus driver, a rather old looking man looked at him, his old eyes dancing across his injuries. "Yes. That will do." He took a dollar, letting Kuwabara keep the rest, and Kuwabara sank in a seat near the old man. He didn't want to turn around, he could feel eyes starring at him.  
  
Selfconcislly pulling up his hoodie, he sat back looking at the window thinking of them...his friends....  
  
:Childhood can be so cruel.:  
  
There was blood in his eyes that day.  
  
The pain was brutal. It all happened so fast. The demons...there were so many. Kuwabara could hear everyone screaming, and though he was in great pain, found it odd that he couldn't scream.He realized why as he felt himself blacking out.  
  
He couldn't breathe.  
  
Demons had piled so high up on him, he couldn't breathe, or move. But soon he felt a burning heat fill up around him, and the demons were blasted off him. He rolled on his stomach wearily, his hands splashing into a puddle of blood.  
  
Glazed over eyes tried to look up, but closed as something jerked him up. When the ground stopped moving, Kuwabara's eyes opened to see Yusuke's worried face. Kuwabara was trying to stand, but found he couldn't get his legs to work.  
  
Yusuke was just as beat up, and struggled to hold Kuwabara up. Kuwabara found he could only offer Yusuke a lopsided grin. There was no other way he could think of signaling Yusuke he was okay.  
  
Yusuke got the message.  
  
And he smiled...just like he always did.  
  
:Thank god I had you.:  
  
Kuwabara's eyes filled with tears, as more memories followed....  
  
Kuwabara had been set down, and he tried his best to sit up finding it harder than he thought it would be. When he did his eyes met a horrible sight. Kurama and Hiei's torn apart bodies crashing into the earth, and Yusuke killing off the last few demons, a large chunk of his side ripped open. Kuwabara made a spirit sword stabbing, and killing one demon.  
  
Yusuke turned around, tears streaming down his face. Kurama and Hiei were dead. Yusuke's face seemed to jerk and he screamed, though Kuwabara, it seemed, had gone deaf. Something hard struck Kuwabara's head, and he felt his head split open, as if in half.  
  
It went cold, and an odd tune he used to know filled his head. A song he used to know when he was little. He fell back, and as things grew dark, the last thing Kuwabara saw was Yusuke throwing himself on top of him, hands on him trying to force in life energy.  
  
Kuwabara was swallowed in the darkness just like the others. Only thing was...Kuwabara woke up.  
  
The others didn't.  
  
Hiei, Kurama, and Yusuke had all died. Kuwabara's life spared by Yusuke giving up his own.  
  
:They say you should remember them the way they were and never cry, but that's easier said than done.:  
  
Kuwabara shook his head, trying to rif himself of their ripped up bodies, or their caskets. But the images stayed, and Kuwabara remembered the tears he'd been holding so long.  
  
He had not cried yet, but he was ready to...just as soon as he got off the bus...  
  
"Hey...The cemetery..." Kuwabara snapped out of it, thanked the old driver and stood alone on a large hill, starring up at a tree, which protected his three friend's bodies.  
  
:I tried, but too many times I've seen people leave in a box.:  
  
He starred at their graves, and like a horrid rain storm the tears fell. With a surprisingly steady voice he spoke to the graves. "Hey Kurama...Hiei...Yusuke."  
  
"Sorry I'm blubbering like a baby, but it doesn't seem fair that I lived while you guys..." Kuwabara covered his wet face, "Why couldn't :I: have died instead....Why couldn't :I: have at least died with you!? I don't want to be left alone..."  
  
Kuwabara wiped his eyes again, "I'm sorry...Just give me a minute....to st-stop cryin'."  
  
:So I can't cry, I have to be strong.:  
  
An hour later his tears stopped. "Guys...I promise...I'm going to visit you every day...I don't give a damX about much else...If I can't be with You guys in death, or life..." Kuwabara knelt down picking up the scattered trash on the graves, "Then at least I'm going to keep your graves clean, and keep you company."  
  
He smiled resting against his best friend's headstone silent tears trickling down his face, "I'm not letting you be forgotten."  
  
:Days go by, I wish I could see you again.:  
  
A year went by, and like he promised he visited everyday. He had flowers, every sunday, and cleaned their graves every time he decided to visit. Sometimes they were short visits, and sometimes they were hourly long visits.  
  
The scar on his head would never disappear, and his hair was having trouble going back, but Kuwabara, tired of hiding it after two months, just left it alone. Letting people tell him its disgusting, and make fun of him. He would just smile.  
  
He was dead inside, how would their words affect him?  
  
:To lose a friend; The world's so unfair.:  
  
Another year went by, and another, until Kuwabara was 25 and a successful child's doctor. He smiled down at his friends, and sadly told them, "One of my pupil's died...his best friend was with him...I told him about you guys...so he's going to visit."  
  
Tears splashed in the grass. "God...I...I miss you!"  
  
:Sometimes I think about what may have been, if that phone didn't ring.  
  
Would people have wept over me, like they wept over you?  
  
What would become of mom and dad, to lose their only son?  
  
Would school even notice I was gone?:  
  
Even now, Kuwabara wondered what would have happened if he had died with his friends. He would be a lot happier, at least that's what he thought. But...then his sister would have been alone. He remembered how she had clung to him, sobbing out his name.  
  
She had been so grateful.  
  
But Kuwabara couldn't get Yusuke's, and Kurama's mother's faces out of his head. He visited them regularly, to help take care of them both. Even though Kurama's mother was married. He constantly visited, and he felt happier as the pain seemed to slowly fade away.  
  
As they grew happier, Kuwabara felt more miserable, but he put on his happy face, and talked happily with the mothers. Yukina, and Genkai were to smart for that though, and tried to help him release the pain.  
  
He held it close to him...The pain was all that kept him knowing he was alive.  
  
:I am gone, I am gone.:  
  
More years went bye, and Kuwabara was loved by every child he helped. Kuwabara was now 44. He smiled down at the graves, sunflowers in hand. He still visited everyday. "The day I don't visit, is the day I die." Kuwabara smiled, face wrinkled and worn.  
  
Though Kuwabara got along well with everyone, no one took his best friends places. When asked about them he would simply say, "They're sleeping...but I am too...one day our eyes will open."  
  
Kuwabara bent down, smiling. His strength had not given out, he'd proven this when attacked. He could still call out his sprit sword, and still see things he wished he couldn't. Now he was much better at it, and like Genkai had done, had taken on a pupil.  
  
Surprise, surprise, the kid was a rekai student. Just like Yusuke.  
  
Kuwabara set the flowers down on each grave, and smiled, "I can see ghosts...but...I know this isn't fair...I wish I could have seen you. I wish you...I wish you could have let me seen you. Where did you all go?" He placed a hand over his face, remembering his friend's smiling faces.  
  
:Where are all my best friends?  
  
They left me alone again.  
  
Struck down, I never had my chance to say goodbye.:  
  
More years go bye, and Kuwabara was in his early fifties. He wore glasses now, he had a little trouble seeing. He still had all his hair, though it was almost completely gray. He smiled down at the graves, sitting down to have a talk with them.  
  
He had never married, all his relationships had thought he was a fool for visiting his friends ever day. Only Yukina understood, but Kuwabara didn't marry her. He didn't want her to marry someone who would eventually die on her. She left, and was married, and currently had 6 children and 2 grandchildren.  
  
Kuwabara had treated her youngest son, Hiei, on more than one occasion.  
  
"Thank you guys...for always being there." He smiled, and rose, back popping. "Oh I'm getting to old for this!"  
  
:I never said thank you.  
  
Who needed love?:  
  
Years went by again...and Kuwabara was in his late seventies, retired now, but still idolized by many children, and called 'Uncle Kuwabara,' by almost everyone. Kuwabara made his slow way up the hill towards his friend's resting place. It had almost become a chore to see them.  
  
"Hello Hiei," He patted his headstone smiling, and then Kurama's, "Hello Kurama." He pat Yusuke's, "Hey Urameshi..." He smiled, and dropped flowers on their graves, sitting slowly down.  
  
He grunted, "Its getting so hard to move....I'll be 80 in another year!" He laughed adjusting his glasses. Though he was old, and forgot things as soon as you told him, He still remembered his friend's faces. He remembered their old battles, and the hardships they had all embraced.  
  
"Ah guys...we had some fun didn't we...if you had all lived..." His face crinkled into a smile, "Well lets not think about that..." Kuwabara smiled at them, his withered face soft and kind.  
  
"...But...we would have had a blast, now wouldn't we?"  
  
:I had you.:  
  
"Hey guys..." A very old man, standing with a slight hunch appeared at an three graves. His hair was a mass of white curls and he looked like he'd seen the begiing of time. "I'm 90 now...can you believe it? 'm still visitin' too." Kuwabara coughed.  
  
He frowned, "People keep trying to get me to goto a nursing home, but I would die in there without sunlight, and of course my friends." Tears dripped down his old face. "Are you laughing at me, my old friends? I'm so old...yet I refuse to stop visiting me." He laughed bitterly, "What an old fool I am."  
  
Kuwabara looked down at them, "I don't know how much longer I have..." Kuwabara smiled at them sadly. "I have done a bad thing...Your not going to like this, but I've become attached to this world." He laced his old fingers together smiling at headstones. "If I die...I don't think I'll be joining you...I think I may become a lonely ghost, sitting at your graves."  
  
Silence, and then, "Hush now..." He spoke to no one. "I'm not doing this on purpose...it just seemed to happen this way." He turned away from the graves, marching slowly down hill, "I'm so old now...but I can remember your faces so well...I remember...."  
  
And he babbled on, all the way home.  
  
:But now you've faded away, like the pictures I hang on my wall.:  
  
It was not years later, or even weeks later, but the next day. Kuwabara had not returned. He lay in bed too tired to even shove the covers off. He wept, he wanted to visit his friends...just like he promised he would.  
  
"This is it! C'mon! C'mon!"  
  
"What's the big hurry...we were bound to see him any way..."  
  
"Let him be excited! We've all missed him."  
  
:I'll remember you.:  
  
Three silent figures crept their way into Kuwbara's house, and entered the old man's room to see a very old figure crying. They stood frozen, and one ventured out, "Kuwabara?" The old man turned his head, and the tears slowly stopped.  
  
"You..."  
  
In front of him was his friends. Yusuke, still young and cockily, Hiei looking pissy as ever, and Kurama smiling sweetly. They were all there. "Your so old..." Hiei said sounding shocked. "It...It happens." Kuwabara got out.  
  
Yusuke was at his side, hand over his, "I can't believe you kept visiting out gravesite all these years..." Ghostly tears slid down his face. "Its okay Kuwabara you don't have to hurt anymore." Kuwabara smiled as Kurama and Hiei Joined Yusuke.  
  
Kuwabara grunted with sudden pain, and Hiei's hand was on his shoulder, Kurama at his other side. Yusuke was swallowing hard. This was it, Kuwabara was dying. Though they had come here because of this moment, they had not been prepared to see this weak, tired old man in his place.  
  
And watching him die was harder than they thought.  
  
"Let go Kuwabara..." Yusuke whispered, "You don't have to hang on anymore..." Kuwabara went slack, and the others waited breathless, when they heard someone clear their throat behind them.  
  
They turned to see Kuwabara, with his hair gelled up, and looking 17 again. "Hey!" He smiled and hugged his friends as they came over to him, and even picked Hiei up laughing as the short demon vowed to give him hell in heaven.  
  
But he and Yusuke embraced the longest, crying happy tears. Yusuke took his hand, Kurama taking his other, and they dragged him to a bright light. "You have no idea how much I've missed you..." Yusuke said choking. "Trust me I do..." Kuwabara said pulling his hand away, and wrapping it around his shoulder.  
  
"So...whats it like up there."  
  
"Its fine...you'll be happy there."  
  
"Hmmf."  
  
"Kuwabara, we're going to liven up that place, you and me!"  
  
Soon the house was empty and all that was left was, an old husk left behind.  
  
:I'll remember you.: 


End file.
